Vampires are one of the three main supernatural races in the World of Darkness and the fundamental characters of Vampire: The Masquerade and Kindred of the East. They are split into two main species: the predominantly western Cainites (also called Kindred), and the oriental Kuei-jin.

The Cainites (also called Kindred), are descendants of Caine (the Biblical Cain), cursed with a thirst for blood, vulnerability to sunlight and immortality. They are forever subject to the Beast, their raging animal urges of hunger, fear and rage.

Cainites generally live in cities, which are run feudally by Princes; life in a city is one of constant political manipulation and paranoia, as the powers of the city vie for power, control and food. They are creatures ruled by fear, most importantly the fear of exposure to the Kine, everyday humanity.

Since the Inquisition the majority of the Cainites have lived under the Masquerade, an enforced campaign to hide the existence of their kind from humanity. In modern nights various scientific minded members of the species have classified their kind as Homo Sapiens Sanguineus, Homo Sapientissimus or even Homo Vampiricus.[1]

Vampires are created through the Embrace; during the Embrace, a vampire drains a candidate of all their blood and replaces it with a small amount (generally a single drop) of their own. This causes the corpse to rise as a (very hungry) vampire, usually instantly (though those of the highest generations may appear to lie dead for some time before they awaken). The vampire who initiates the Embrace is the Sire; the new vampire is the Sire’s Childe.

When a vampire is Embraced, their internal organs wither away, and almost all their body fluids are replaced by blood. The only exception being the stomach, which pulses with the blood that the vampire consumes.[2] Vampires use blood (also called Vitae) for a variety of purposes; blood replaces most bodily fluids, so vampires will cry blood and sweat blood under certain circumstances. Blood is also used to get up and move; every night, vampires expend a certain amount of blood to rise. In addition, vampires can use blood to enhance their physical attributes and use supernatural powers called Disciplines. Blood is used to Embrace, as noted above, and also to create Ghouls. Finally, vampires can use blood to heal damage.

Blood is generally replaced by sucking it out of humans. While vampires can feed on other creatures, they do not enjoy the taste of animal blood and older vampires will acquire no sustenance from it (whilst the blood of the supernatural creatures are an entirely different matter). The process of taking blood is euphemistically called the Kiss or feeding. Vampires do not have to completely drain a victim, although frenzying vampires are likely to do so. Vampires can hide the puncture marks of feeding by licking the wounds, making the process fairly subtle. The Feeding process is highly pleasurable (arguably the only pleasure) for vampires, and is also extremely pleasurable for victims. Vessels who are drained regularly can become addicted to the Kiss.

Vampires change considerably after the Embrace. Physically, they are incapable of eating food, with most vomiting it up almost instantly (and even those that can keep it down for a while will still have to regurgitate the food later), they have no need for sex as the need to feed replaces all physical and emotional urges, although they can imitate the physical reactions for sex if needed and will even feel pleasure from it, though all such mortal pleasures pale in comparison to the ecstasy of the Kiss.[3]As a result of these processes, the vampire is paler and generally thinner than they were before the Embrace. Certain clans have more extreme physical changes, such as the Nosferatu or the Cappadocians.

Once Embraced, vampires are locked into a form of stasis. Apart from wounds (healed with blood), vampires are restored to their condition at the time of Embrace every time they rise up for the night. This physical condition eventually extends to their mindsets – old vampires almost always find it very hard to learn new things, much like how an older human will often find it difficult to keep up with next generation’s innovations and ways of thinking.

In addition to the physical changes, vampires experience extreme intellectual and emotional changes. The vampire is now a predator, and has a raging ID called the Beast, that may take control of his body (be it through fear, hunger or hatred).Vampires are highly durable against physical threats, except for fire or sunlight. If set ablaze they burn easily, and will burn up almost instantly in sunlight. However, outside of these, vampires are very hard to kill – bullets do not cause much damage, and those who possess the Disciplines of Celerity and Fortitude are extremely hard to hit, let alone damage in combat. That said, shotguns and similar weapons are warily respected or feared; while an individual bullet might not frighten a vampire, it becomes a different issue when the weapon can remove their head entirely with a well-placed shot, or remove limbs in seconds with a never-ending stream of lead.

When severely wounded, vampires can pass into a deathlike stasis called Torpor, which allows them to heal more extreme damage. Torpor can last for centuries depending on the circumstances, and as a vampire gets older, Torpor becomes a more attractive option due to social and personal issues often suffered by vampires of significant age or those who cannot cope with the changes in society. Some vampires have been in Torpor for millennia, such as the Antediluvians.

Every vampire has a Generation, numbered from 1 (Caine) to 15 in the Canonical games. A vampire is always one generation higher than his Sire, thus farther removed from Caine. Generation has a variety of effects – mental powers do not work on vampires of lower generation, and the lower a generation the more potent a vampire can become.

Generation has a variety of gameplay effects, the most important being Blood Pool. The amount of blood a character can store and spend changes radically as their generation decreases, this makes a low-generation character far more potent in combat, especially once they can spend multiple blood points at a time. Generation also affects most mental disciplines – characters generally cannot use mental disciplines on characters of a lower generation. In addition, Characters cannot raise attributes or disciplines above 5 dots unless they are 7th generation or lower. Higher dot disciplines tend to be highly idiosyncratic.

Aside from the particular curses of each clan, the Cainites share a few disadvantages. For instance, vampires must feed on the blood of other beings to survive and heal their wounds (with few notable exceptions, such as the Nagaraja, who must feed on flesh as well). In addition, they universally fear fire, sunlight, decapitation, and the teeth, claws and powers of other supernatural creatures. A wooden stake through the heart will immobilize them.

Also, after the embrace every vampire must be wary of the influence of the Beast upon their behavior. The Beast continuously assaults the character, and if the Beast’s demands exceed the character’s own capacity to control it, it will react in a Frenzy or Rtschreck. Vampires can permanently lose control to the Beast, entering Wassail, a state of permanent Frenzy. In this condition, all humanity is lost and the vampire becomes a mindless killing machine.

Cainite’s history begins with a homicidal farmer: Caine of the Biblical story. According to Vampiric mythology (detailed in the Book of Nod), Caine killed his brother Abel and was exiled by God to Nod, East of Eden. Outside of Nod he met Lilith, who taught him the basics of vampiric power. At this time, he was also cursed by God’s Angels to be vulnerable to fire, sunlight and the treachery of his descendants.

Caine then traveled to Enoch, the First City of the human race. There he embraced its ruler and became the God-King of the city, embracing three childer as the Second Generation. These three childer in turn embraced the thirteen Antediluvians, the founders of the clans.

Some time after this, the Antediluvians rebelled against the Second Generation, after which the Great Flood covered Enoch in water. The Antediluvians survived for 40 days under water, devouring their own, until the floods receded.

Some time after the flood, the Antediluvians build the Second City, which they rule over as Gods, until Caine returns to pass judgement on them. Caine curses each of the Clans, then leaves.

The Antediluvians spread across the world at this time, travelling to various places and embracing further descendants. Eventually, they sink into Torpor. Vampires fear Gehenna, the time that the Antediluvians will rise from Torpor and devour their descendants, then Caine will return in judgement. The Camarilla claims Gehenna is a fraud, and that there are no Antediluvians. In contrast, the Sabbat is strongly Noddist and sees defeating the Antediluvians as their entire purpose.

Nominally, every vampire is Embraced into a Clan, which is a line of vampires tracing their ancestry back to a common Antediluvian. Each Clan has specific strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own distinct history. A vampire without a Clan is Caitiff, generally a second-class citizen in vampiric society.

Most vampires belong to one of two major sects: the Camarilla and the Sabbat. The Camarilla consists of those clans who are dedicated to preserving the Masquerade and (generally) their Humanity. The Sabbat are dedicated to the coming Gehenna and the superiority of the vampire species over humanity. It should be noted that the distinction is not between Good Vampires and Bad Vampires as much as between Bad Vampires and Worse Vampires (which is which depends largely on who you ask). The Camarilla and Sabbat are violent enemies.

In addition to these two Sects, several lesser divisions exist. Vampires who reject both Sects in favor of more indepedence are grouped into a loose community called Anarch. Several Clans are loyal primarily to their Clans, and are independent of the major Sects. In addition, there is a group of mysterious elder vampires, the Inconnu, who eschew all politics in favor of their own projects. However, not every Kindred belongs to a Sect, nor swears fealty to a Clan, Prince, Bishop, or other such entity – these Autarkis often lead solitary unlives not unlike hermits or outcasts.

While they are still globalized, mostvampires are generally confined to one city (which is ruled in a feudal fashion). At the apex of the power structure is the Prince, who is generally served by a council of Primogen, the prince controls access to feeding grounds which he allocates as fiefs. There are additional city offices, notably the Harpies and Sheriff; later editions of VTM introduce the Scourge, as well as other, more specialized minor offices.

Sabbat cities use a slightly different structure. Cities are generally ruled by a Archbishop, who is supported by a number of Bishops. Below this level are the various packs who make up the bulk of Sabbat society; these packs are led by Ducti.

In addition to these offices, however, the Sects impose their own additional offices. Princes report to the Camarilla, whose most visible officers are the Archons, roving agents of the Justicars, who are the highest public Camarilla official. Each clan provides one Justicar, who controls his own stable of Archons. Justicars are roving troubleshooters, each one generally focusing on one major project at a time – such as conducting a war to take over a city.

The Sabbat has a complex internal structure which includes both Templars and an internal Inquisition as well as a mini-sect called the Black Hand.

CLANSThere are a total ofthirteen majorclans.

Here is a list of the seven clans who were part of the Camarilla since it’s foundation. However, it should be noted that the Gangrel left the sect after events that took place in the Final Nights.

The Sabbat is composed of many different clans and bloodlines. While all the Camarilla clans certainly have an antitribu representation within the Sabbat, the term also applies to factions within three independent clans which have joined the sect. However, there are two clans whose main body adhered to the Sabbat since it’s foundation:

Clans that are believed to be extinct.

In addition to the thirteen clans, there are a variety of bloodlines, who are offshoots or mutations of existing clans. These bloodlines are generally small and normally politically impotent. Examples include the Daughters of Cacophony, Kiasyd and Samedi.

The Sabbat has two major clans, but in addition, members of the Camarilla clans have joined the Sabbat since there was a Sabbat (actually, technically before there was a Sabbat). These clans are called antitribu and usually differ slightly from their parent clans, either in terms of disciplines or weaknesses.

In the World of Darkness, there is an increasing number of “clanless”vampires who were abandoned by their sires immediately following the Embrace and who are ignorant of their clan status; a vampire cannot choose to become clanless. They are called Caitiff by the Camarilla, and regarded as a sign of the Masquerade spiralling out of control, therefore gaining little respect from their elders. The Sabbat, on the other hand, gladly embraces the clanless (which they call Panders) into the sect. The more superstitious see the growing numbers of these vampires as an omen of the coming Gehenna, the Final Nights of prophecy when all children of Caine will be destroyed.

Vampires observe a set of customs that exists somewhere between being coded into their undead natures and a social contract thats ratified every night among the courts of the Damned. Not every vampire affords the idea of the Traditions the respect they deserve the Sabbat in particular make bold claims about the flaws of the Traditions and the weak wills of those who hide behind them but in practice, most vampires observe the Traditions to some extent. This is most true of the Masquerade, for as bold as the Sabbat or Anarchs may be, even they dont have the concentrated might to stand against a world of mortals who learn the secret that the undead walk among them.

Interpreting and enforcing the Traditions is the privilege and responsibility of the Cainite rulers. In some domains, particularly those of non-Camarilla Sects, both the titles and the Traditions themselves may vary, but the core principle is found everywhere: that an undead authority makes the rules and woe to any who feel that they dont have to heed them.

Vampire espouses a virtue system which has changed in the various editions. The core of the system is three humane virtues: Conscience, Self-Control and Courage, rated from one to five. In addition to these virtues, all vampires have a Humanity score, rated from one to ten.

Humanity is ultimately a measure of how much control a vampire has over the Beast; the lower the Humanity, the more a vampire is controlled by his appetites. The default humanity for human beings is around 7.

Vampires lose humanity by committing sins; whenever a vampire does something that violates his morality, the player rolls a degeneration check. Losing the roll costs the character a point of humanity, while winning the roll maintains the morality. It should be noted that by winning, the character feels guilt – he realizes he’s done something wrong. Conversely, losing means that the character is more comfortable with that sin, be it stealing a book or killing a friend. What qualifies as a sin depends on the character’s morality score; as a character’s humanity rises, the opportunities to degenerate become more common.

In general, humanity is inimical to being a vampire – as a blood-drinking nocturnal marauder, the character must engage in a variety of socially deviant behavior. As a result, most characters drop humanity until they reach a stable, if low, level. Low humanity has gameplay effects; a character cannot roll more dice on a social roll involving people than his humanity score. The remainder drop all the way to zero, Wassail, storyteller control and a violent death.

Humanity is not the only moral path available, the Sabbat and independent clans espouse Paths of Enlightenment, which outline alien and rigid moralities strongly divorced from the human norm. These are descended from the Dark Ages Roads, but are generally not practiced by Camarilla vampires.

There are also other creatures who share the Classic World of Darkness with the Cainites. Some are oblivious to them while others actively hunt them down. Here are a few examples on their perspectives regarding vampires:

In the modern nights the majority of mortals have been convinced by The Masquerade that vampires are myths, and thus possess only the knowledge found in the average novel or movie. There are a handful of cults and organizations that are aware of the existence of vampires, such as the Society of Leopold, though their information is often skewed and incomplete. One example is how in the Middle East, vampires are called Adites and are believed to descend from a tribe of people that challenged one of Allah’s prophets and were cursed with eternal thirst after Allah let their city sink beneath the desert.

Most Garou regard vampires as servants of the Wyrm and attack them on sight. Thus, discussion between the two races is incredibly rare and neither side really understands the other, aside from recognition of the mutual antagonism. As most vampires prefer civilization over the wild (largely because werewolves are not believed to spend as much time in cities), encounters between the two are infrequent but usually violent.

Very few of the Awakened realize that vampires are real, though their interaction with both the wondrous and monstrous makes them fairly open-minded to the idea of their existence. Regardless, most mages have no more knowledge concerning vampires than the average mortal gets from modern fiction. Those that have encountered vampires, however, often are intrigued by their apparent abilities to avoid paradox and the levels of quintessence contained in their blood.

Most wraiths couldn’t care less about vampires; after all, their posturing and manipulation have no effect on the dead side of the Shroud. A scant few vampires with Auspex have become aware of the presence of wraiths, but most of the time, vampires and wraiths leave each other alone.

The exception comes with the nigrimancer Giovanni, who seek to control wraiths, the Shroud, and the Shadowlands. Fear towards these invaders is not unknown among the dead, but far more react towards the Giovanni with rage and fury, especially if the Giovanni attempts to manipulate wraiths against their will. A few wraiths have been known to form alliances with the more “pleasant” Giovanni, but these are rare, and most go out of their way to avoid the Necromancers. Some wraiths have also made contact with the Tremere and the Samedi; these have usually been of a slightly more pleasant nature.

The eastern Kuei-jin are an entirely different species of vampire. Their society is very exclusive and they recognize only their own kin as meriting any sort of fundamental rights or respect. The cainites are commonly called Kin-jin, and seen as the foreign devils who have brought down the Fifth Age upon the Middle Kingdom. Most Cathayans see the Kin-jin as enemies, menaces and infiltrators, the ignorant and corrupt tools of the Yama Kings.[4].

Demons and the kindred are usually competitors for the same prize – mankind and all it has to offer. Both groups are highly territorial, prideful and more than willing to resort to violence if threatened. Its not surprising, then, that most demon-vampire relations tend to be highly confrontational. This is especially true when a fallen and one of the kindred find themselves vying for a hold over a particular mortal or mortal institution. Both sides will spare no effort to protect what they see as theirs. This is not to say that all demon-vampire relations are ultimately destructive. Some of the fallen, particularly of the Reconciler faction, have forged ties with individual vampires, hoping to use their lore to restore the kindreds humanity in exchange for knowledge and support as the demons try to further their agenda worldwide.

Mummies call vampires as ghuls and have an ambivalent relationship with the Cainites. While they loathe the Setites as the spawn of their dreaded enemy Set, they cherish the Children of Osiris. According to the Undying lore, when Osiris proclaimed an end to cannibalism, some ghuls rebelled and were burned to death by Ra’s fury for their defiance. The surviving blood demons slipped into the shadows and carried on in their vile ways.[5]

The Middle Kingdom, while hosting western vampires as well, has its own nocturnal predators: The Kuei-jin. These creatures, while similar to western vampires, differ from them in a number of ways, most being metaphysical and cultural.

As their creation ties them strongly to their homelands, Kuei-jin are usually confined to Eastern Asia, although in the Final Nights, some have arrived in California and Australia.

The Drowned Legacies are a curiosity from South America. A breed of vampires from pre-columbian times, they can neither be fully attributed to the Cainites nor to the Kuei-jin. Even their very existence is more rumor than fact.

The Drowned are suspected to be malleable in their nature, mimicking the supernaturals around them. While they currently mimick vampires, they might one night shift and resemble some other supernatural creature.

Dracula, Gothic novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. The most popular literary work derived from vampire legends, Dracula became the basis for an entire genre of literature and film.

Read More on This Topic

Vlad the Impaler

What is the real story behind the prince who may have inspired the character Dracula?

SUMMARY: One of the most spectacular novels of the 19th century, Dracula still frightens its readers today just as it did over a century ago. The story, like that of Frankenstein, has become a modern myth and has been performed countless times on stage, radio, television, and in film. Presented in a series of formats (such as letters, diaries, even news items), it tells the story of a young London lawyer, Jonathan Harker, recruited by Count Dracula to acquire property for him in England. Harkers journey to the Counts Eastern European castle in Transylvania (now in Romania) is an ominous one, with ravenous wolves attacking him along the way, and after his arrival the sense of dread and fear is palpable as the tension rises and Harker slowly begins to realize he is a prisoner in the castle and that his client possess horrible eccentricities. Perhaps the novels most powerful moment is when Harker sees his employer crawling face-downwards on the outside wall of his castle, like a bat.

Count Dracula, as he learns, is an undead villain who uses his supernatural powers to lure and prey upon innocent victims whom he bites in order to gain the blood he needs to survive. The novel is written chiefly in the form of journals kept by the principal charactersHarker, who contacts the vampire in his Transylvanian castle; Harkers fiance (later his wife), Mina, adored by the Count; the well-meaning Dr. Seward; and Lucy Westenra, a victim who herself becomes a vampire. The doctor and friends destroy Dracula in the end, but only after they have driven a stake through Lucys heart and cut off her head in order to save her soul. After Harker finally escapes back to England and Dracula follows, a dramatic pursuit of Dracula back to Transylvania ensues, whereupon the vampire is finally killed.

Dracula combined central European folktales of the nosferatu, or undead, with historical accounts of the 15th-century prince Vlad the Impaler, who allegedly impaled 100,000 victims and was given the epithet Dracula (a derivative of Romanian drac, or devil). Critics have seen the storys vampirism as a lurid Victorian literary sublimation of sexuality.

A 2009 sequel to the original, Dracula: The Un-Dead, based on the novelists own notes and excisions from the original, was cowritten by Dacre Stoker (great-grandnephew of the author) and Ian Holt. It is set in London in 1912, and it features Bram Stoker as a character.

With Lauren Cohan set to exit The Walking Dead this season, alongside original star Andrew Lincoln, the actress has been careful to note this isn’t necessarily the last fans of her will see on the show. Instead, she says Maggie’s story is left “open-ended.” That’s a massive change of course, given that most departing characters on The Walking Dead wind up dead or turning into zombies.

Now, after wrapping her final scenes on the series, for now, Cohan opened up to GameSpot about saying goodbye to The Walking Dead. “I’ve been really busy, so I’ve been definitely distracted from getting too much into my thoughts about it,” she tells GameSpot while promoting her new film Mile 22. “But I had a lot of time to think about it before I came back to Walking Dead this season. And what the show means to me, what my family there means to me, what my time there has meant, and how this role has impacted my life which is immeasurable.”

As for the decision to keep Maggie’s fate on the series open-ended, she’s quick to note it doesn’t mean she’ll return to the show, though that is certainly a possibility. Instead, Cohan feels like this is the proper way to say goodbye to Maggie, as the show reaches the end of her story at this point.

“It feels like the greatest way to honor it is to keep it open-ended because whether it’s about me going back as Maggie or whether it’s about me just taking in, absorbing, and honoring everything I’ve learned there,” she says. “It never leaves me. It will never, ever leave me. And that is I think the greatest compliment you can give to anything and to any group of people because we all came together to make something that we didn’t know was going to have this success that it did.”

In many ways, she also grew up as an actor on the show. “It taught me to trust in such an important, creative way,” she explains. “I don’t think I can ever shake that. Once you have an experience like that, it really dictates the measure of how you want to connect with people going forward in my work.”

Now, as she looks to life after the zombie apocalypse, Cohan is stretching her acting wings. Whether it’s the espionage drama Whiskey Cavalier she’s starring in on ABC or her new action movie Mile 22, in which she stars alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ronda Rousey, she’s taking on projects a far cry from characters simply trying to survive in a dying world.

“I feel so honored that [director Peter Berg] wanted me to be involved in Mile 22 and that Mark wanted me to be involved in Mile 22,” she says. “It was a quick casting process. I made my tape and then I had a little bit of feedback that Pete liked it and wanted to meet me. And when I sat down to meet with him, he told me there on the spot that I had the part. I was so overwhelmed with pride that he wanted me to be involved in one of his projects. And somebody that I respect so much, I was just pinching myself.”

Today in “wow, that’s nuts:” Negan, the whistling, barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat-wielding bad guy from AMC’s horror drama The Walking Dead, will be a playable character in Tekken 7, Gamespot reports.

Tekken 7, which was released last year, is the latest edition of the classic fighting game that I spent hundreds of dollars of quarters playing at the arcade as a kid. Negan will be part of an update. And he’s bringing Lucille with him.

Gamespot points out that Tekken producer Katsuhiro Hirado said last year that while Negan is a “historic villain,” he’s “too weak as a fighter” for Tekken. I guess he changed his mind.

Is Negan too weak as a fighter, though? Let’s think about how he’d do against some other Tekken characters.

King: The luchador with the jaguar mask would throw Negan across the room like a ragdoll. Negan isn’t very big. Jeffrey Dean Morgan isn’t jacked like a pro wrestler, which is what King is.

Kazuya Mishima: He’s like the strongest character in the game. Negan’s not beating him.

Heihachi Mishima: He may be old, but he’s very tough. Negan can’t out-evil him.

Marshall Law: Do you think Negan could beat Bruce Lee? If you do, maybe reconsider. He couldn’t even beat Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

Nina Williams: Can Negan string together combos like Nina? No. Negan has no combos. He probably ate Combos.

Paul Phoenix: Paul looks like he could be a Walking Dead character with his crazy tall hair, and he could punch Negan’s lights out.

Yoshimitsu: C’mon, man. Yoshimitsu has a super-strong prosthetic arm that he uses to slice people up with his sword. You may say “it would be cool to see that sword fight Negan’s bat.” I say Negan is too slow. Negan is just a man. He’s not a karate master.

Kuma: Kuma is bear, which means he has a short reach and is slow and lumbering. Negan could stand far away and clonk Kuma in the face with Lucille. Kuma is the only character Negan could beat.

Reedus has however confirmed that he’ll share an “epic” scene with his old playmate Lincoln in episode 4 of the upcoming season, a sequence he claimed was the most challenging he’s ever had to film on The Walking Dead.

Daryl has, of course, had his fair share of emotionally intense moments. But by Reedus’s reckoning, an upcoming Rick and Daryl scene is even more emotional than, say, Beth’s death or the execution of zombie Merle.

“It was really well-written and we worked on it, and we really fine-tuned it and got it to a place where it became sort of effortless,” the star said. “It could’ve gone in so many different directions, but I think both of us are really proud of that.”

AMC

The Walking Dead has traditionally made rural landscapes its stomping grounds woods, farmyards, small towns but season nine is set to shake things up aesthetically, starting with a trip to Washington DC.

“Getting a chance to get into DC, I couldn’t help but think about the opening to [1985 zombie movie classic] Day of the Dead, where you’re seeing the desolate open city,” said executive producer and special effects guru Greg Nicotero.

Advertisement – Continue Reading Below

Dead Films Inc.

Above: The opening to Day of the Dead

Citing another film influence on the new season, Nicotero added: “We even did a shot that was reminiscent of the last shot of Planet of the Apes.” You maniacs!

AMCJackson Lee Davis

Though The Walking Dead will continue to push forward with the time jump, we’ll see the last remnants of old society continue to crumble.

With fuel running out and bullets hard to come by, our survivors will be relying more on hand-held weapons, and horses to get around.

“There are ways in which the world regresses, which is very interesting,” hinted Michonne actress Danai Gurira. “To step forward a bit was very refreshing. But we’re getting almost medieval at the same time as we’re moving forward.”

“Nature’s taking over, man-made structures are falling down and that provides challenges to our group,” said new showrunner Kang. “We see how intrepid they are, and how clever they are, in facing these challenges.”

AMCGene Page

With a sprawling cast of 20 series regulars, it can sometimes be difficult for The Walking Dead to give every character their due.

Kang has promised “great material” this season for the entire cast, but has also indicated that there’ll be a renewed focus on the show’s most enduring characters.

“These are relationships that the audience has invested in for many, many years and we really love writing for them,” she said. “You will see a lot more screen time for some of these relationships, with Daryl and Carol [Melissa McBride], Rick and Maggie [Lauren Cohan], Michonne and Rick you just want to dive deep into these relationships because there’s a lot of emotional weight to them.”

Gene Page/AMC

In addition to Andrew Lincoln departing the series, Lauren Cohan is also expected to exit The Walking Dead this year as Maggie Rhee. Could their feud instigated by Rick’s decision to save Negan last season end up costing them both their lives?

“We left on a pretty sharp note, a little tense,” Cohan said. “There’s a lot of conflict, but it’s conflict between people who love each other that are all working towards what should be a bigger, brighter, stronger future.”

But according to Cohan, that future “looks different for everybody, and that’s what we get to go into”.

“They’re not at each other’s throats, but they’re still not really down with the decisions that [each other has] made,” added Nicotero.

AMCGene Page

Absolution for the man who battered Glenn to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan doesn’t think it’s out of the question now that Negan’s reign of terror is over and he’s being held prisoner by his nemesis Rick.

“I think there is redemption to be had for Negan whether or not we see that,” Morgan said.

“I think all the characters are going through some changes, and Negan is in that category. He’ll start the season in a position that you’ve never seen Negan before. And he’s going to have to learn to deal with it.”

AMC

Wild as it might sound, Lauren Cohan even thinks that Maggie might eventually forgive Negan for his brutal butchery. “I think it’s going to be interesting, because we all have ideas about what we would do in certain situations and who we want to be and the legacy we want to leave. And when it really comes down to it, what do you do? That’s what the season’s about.”

AMC

With promises of an overhaul under new showrunner Kang, Norman Reedus has described the next 16 episodes as “a very female-driven season” with stories being “told in a different way”.

“It’s less bravado and more real depth this year,” he promised. “It feels like we’re shooting a Western, with feeling.”

And with zombies, naturally.

The Walking Dead returns to AMC on Sunday, October 7 in the US. The series is available on FOX and NOW TV in the UK.

Vampires are mythical beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (usually blood) of living creatures. In folkloric tales, vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhood they inhabited when they were alive.

Having existed in legend and folklore for so long, vampires have been perceived in a variety of ways over the centuries. Since the 18th century, vampires have primarily been depicted as malevolent humanoid beings that seek power and control over mortal men, enthralling innocents by draining their blood and making them susceptible to their commands. While vampires normally appear human, they have elongated fangs for puncturing the necks of their victims, draining the blood from there. Some vampires develop feral, animalistic expressions when caught in battle or while they are feeding.

Because vampires are undead, they have no true life force of their own, hence why they are forced to feed on living blood. The reasoning behind their blood dependency varies between their different iterations; some vampire types with origins more grounded in the realm of science feed on the blood of others because their own blood cannot sustain haemoglobin whereas the more classical types of vampire feed on blood due to being cursed or simply because they are villainous beings who delight in killing and dominating others.

Vampire culture varies throughout media, but it is widely agreed that vampires live and travel in groups together. These groups have been called a clan, coven, brood, clutch or pack. Each is a group of family or friends (usually family) and each group may possess different abilities, depending on the view. The leader of each of these groups is either the eldest, or the one who has performed the most deeds.

In most things, vampires have a common enemy: werewolves. It is part of a vampire’s nature to hate werewolves, and the two are strongly opposed.

What will happen after Rick Grimes exit? The Walking Dead boss speaks out (Picture: AMC)

The Walking Deads return later this year will be bittersweet for fans as they have been dealt with the promise that Rick Grimes will be abandoning his team over the course of season eight, dead or alive.

In turn, plenty of question marks surround the zombie epic, mainly: Can The Walking Dead survive without its hero?

The Walking Dead boss Angela Kang who takes over from former showrunner Scott M. Gimple addressed fans fears and assured Ricks exit will be respectful.

The goal this season was just to pay homage to that character the character that brought us into the show, Kang told Entertainment Weekly.

Rick Grimes has been somebody that people have loved watching, just loved this characters journey. He is this man who was looking for his family, and found them, and lost many of them, but has fought on and on.

And I think thats meant a lot to people. And we just really wanted to be respectful of that character and send him off in a great way. So that was the charge for us this season.

The subsequent chapter, Kang explained: Will tell the story of the people going forward, because its never been a story just about this one man.

It started with him, but its always been a story about this group of people that have each others backs, that help each other survive, that help each other be more human.

After months of speculation, Andrew Lincoln confirmed he would be leaving The Walking Dead during last months San Diego Comic-con.

In a heartfelt speech, he told audiences: This will be my last season playing the part of Rick Grimes, Andrew said. I love this show, it means everything to me, I love the people who make this show I promise not to cry.

I am particularly fond of the people who watch the show, and this has been the most extraordinary amazing experience of my career and largely because of you guys and the relationship we have here and also in rooms across America and across the world.

He added: Were deeply, deeply proud of the work weve done this season, Angela is astonishing and leading with such class its enabling us to really breathe and deepen the relationships on screen.

I suppose what I wanted to say is, my relationship with Mr. Grimes is far from over There are two episodes that are my favourite episodes since the pilot. The rest of the cast is doing the greatest work Ive ever seen.

No one is bigger than the story, and the story is beyond incredible.

The Walking Dead returns to AMC and FOX UK this autumn.

MORE: Andrew Lincoln wasnt the first choice to play Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead

Vampire films have been a staple since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptation of vampire fiction has been from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with over 170 versions to date. Running a distant second are adaptations of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. By 2005, Dracula had been the subject of more films than any other fictional character.

As folklore, vampires are defined by their need to feed on blood and on their manipulative nature; this theme has been held in common throughout the many adaptations.[1] Although vampires are usually associated with the horror (and sometimes zombie genre), vampire films may also fall into the drama, action, science fiction, romance, comedy or fantasy genres, amongst others.

Early cinematic vampires in other such films as The Vampire (1913), directed by Robert G. Vignola, were not undead bloodsucking fiends but ‘vamps’. Such femme fatales were inspired by a poem by Rudyard Kipling called “The Vampire”, composed in 1897. This poem was written as kind of commentary on a painting of a female vampire by Philip Burne-Jones exhibited in the same year. Lyrics from Kipling’s poem: A fool there was … , describing a seduced man, were used as the title of the film A Fool There Was (1915) starring Theda Bara as the ‘vamp’ in question and the poem was used in the publicity for the film.[2]

An authentic supernatural vampire features in the landmark Nosferatu (1922 Germany, directed by F. W. Murnau) starring Max Schreck as the hideous Count Orlok. This was an unlicensed version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, based so closely on the novel that the estate sued and won, with all copies ordered to be destroyed. It would be painstakingly restored in 1994 by a team of European scholars from the five surviving prints that had escaped destruction. The destruction of the vampire, in the closing sequence of the film, by sunlight rather than the traditional stake through the heart proved very influential on later films and became an accepted part of vampire lore.[3]

The next classic treatment of the vampire legend was an adaptation of the stage play based on Stoker’s novel Dracula, Universal’s Dracula (1931) starring Bla Lugosi as Count Dracula. Lugosi’s performance was so popular that his Hungarian accent and sweeping gestures became characteristics now commonly associated with Dracula.[4] Five years after the release of the film, Universal released Dracula’s Daughter (1936), a direct sequel that starts immediately after the end of the first film. A second sequel, Son of Dracula, starring Lon Chaney, Jr. followed in 1943. Despite his apparent death in the 1931 film, the Count returned to life in three more Universal films of the mid-1940s: House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945)both starring John Carradineand Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). While Lugosi had played a vampire in two other films during the 1930s and 1940s, it was only in this final film that he played Count Dracula on-screen for the second (and last) time.

A transition between the Universal tradition and the later Hammer style is exemplified by the 1957 Mexican film El Vampiro that showed the vampire fangs (Universal did not).

Dracula was reincarnated for a new generation in Hammer Films series, starring Christopher Lee as the Count. In the first of these films Dracula (1958) the spectacular death of the title character through being exposed to the sun, reinforced this part of vampire lore, first established in Nosferatu, and made it virtually axiomatic in succeeding films.[3] Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of the seven sequels. A more faithful adaptation of Stoker’s novel appeared as Dracula (1992) directed by Francis Ford Coppola though also identifying Count Dracula with the notorious medieval Balkan ruler Vlad the Impaler.[5]

A distinct subgenre of vampire films, ultimately inspired by Le Fanu’s Carmilla explored the topic of the lesbian vampire. Although implied in Dracula’s Daughter, the first openly lesbian vampire was in Blood and Roses (1960) by Roger Vadim. More explicit lesbian content was provided in Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy. The first of these, The Vampire Lovers, (1970), starring Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith, was a relatively straightforward re-telling of LeFanu’s novella, but with more overt violence and sexuality. Later films in this subgenre such as Vampyres (1974) became even more explicit in their depiction of sex, nudity and violence.

Beginning with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) the vampire has often been the subject of comedy. The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) by Roman Polanski was a notable parody of the genre. Other comedic treatments, of variable quality, include Vampira (1974) featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Dracula, Love at First Bite (1979) featuring George Hamilton, My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988), Innocent Blood (1992), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), directed by Mel Brooks with Leslie Nielsen, and, more recently, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s mockumentary take on the subject, What We Do in the Shadows (2014).

Another development in some vampire films has been a change from supernatural horror to science fictional explanations of vampirism. The Last Man on Earth (1964, directed by Ubaldo Ragona), The Omega Man (1971 US, directed by Boris Sagal) and two other films were all based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. They explain the condition as having a natural cause. Vampirism is explained as a kind of virus in David Cronenberg’s Rabid (1976) and Red-Blooded American Girl (1990) directed by David Blyth, as well as in the Blade trilogy to a limited extent.

Race has been another theme, as exemplified by the blaxploitation picture Blacula (1972) and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream.

Though always a representation of passion and desire, since the time of Bla Lugosi’s Dracula (1931) the vampire, male or female, has usually been portrayed as an alluring sex symbol. Christopher Lee, Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella, and Lauren Hutton are just a few examples of actors who brought great sex-appeal into their portrayal of the vampire. Latterly the implicit sexual themes of vampire film have become much more overt, culminating in such films as Gayracula (1983) and The Vampire of Budapest, (1995), two pornographic all-male vampire films, and Lust for Dracula (2005), a softcore pornography all-lesbian adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic.

There is, however, a very small subgenre, pioneered in Murnau’s seminal Nosferatu (1922) in which the portrayal of the vampire is similar to the hideous creature of European folklore. Max Schrek’s disturbing portrayal of this role in Murnau’s film was copied by Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog’s remake Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). In Shadow of the Vampire (2000). directed by E. Elias Merhige, Willem Dafoe plays Max Schrek, himself, though portrayed here as an actual vampire. Dafoe’s character is the ugly, disgusting creature of the original Nosferatu. Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (1979) notably depicts vampires as terrifying, simple-minded creatures, without erotism, and with the only desire to feed on the blood of others. The main vampire in the Subspecies films, Radu, also exhibits similar aesthetic influences, such as long fingers and nails and generally grotesque facial features. This type of vampire is also featured in the film 30 Days of Night.

A major character in most vampire films is the vampire hunter, of which Stoker’s Abraham Van Helsing is a prototype. However, killing vampires has changed. Where Van Helsing relied on a stake through the heart, in Vampires 1998, directed by John Carpenter, Jack Crow (James Woods) has a heavily armed squad of vampire hunters, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui), writer Joss Whedon (who created TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin-off Angel) attached The Slayer, Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson in the film, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series), to a network of Watchers and mystically endowed her with superhuman powers.

By far, the most well-known and popular vampire in the films is Count Dracula. An amazing number of films have been filmed over the years depicting the evil count, some of which are ranked among the greatest depictions of vampires on film. Dracula has over 170 film representations to date making him the most frequently portrayed character in horror films; also he has highest number of film appearances overall followed by Sherlock Holmes.[6][7]

One of the first television series with a vampire as a main character was the 1964 comedy series The Munsters. Lily Munster and Grandpa (also known as Vladimir Dracula, Count of Transylvania) are vampires.

The Munsters was followed in 1966 by the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, in which the vampire Barnabas Collins became a main character.

In 1985 The Little Vampire was a television series made for children. It tells the adventures of the vampire child Rdiger and his human friend Anton.

Forever Knight (19921996) was the first vampire detective story, later followed by many similar series like Angel, Moonlight, Blood Ties and Vampire Prosecutor.

In 1997 the teenage vampire series Buffy the Vampire Slayer became popular around the world. Buffy is a teenage girl who finds out that she is a vampire slayer. She also finds herself drawn to a vampire.

True Blood (2008) centers on the adventures of the telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse who falls in love with a vampire. In the same year BBC Three series Being Human became popular in Britain. It features an unconventional trio of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who are sharing a flat in Bristol.

In 2009 The Vampire Diaries told the story of the school girl Elena Gilbert, who falls in love with vampire Stefan Salvatore but finds herself also drawn to Stefan’s brother Damon Salvatore.

The Strain (2014) is based on the novel of the same name by Guillermo del Toro.

One of the first animated vampire series was the 1989 series Count Duckula, a parody of Dracula. In 1985, the anime film adaptation of the inaugural Vampire Hunter D novel was released direct to video, and became popular in both Japan and the United States, prompting an adaptation of the third novel into the also direct to video film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in 2000. The two films and the novels they are based on revolve around the eponymous D, a vampire hunter who is the apparent half-vampire/half-human son of Dracula who battles vampires in the year 12,090 AD. In 1997 the anime series Vampire Princess Miyu became popular in Japan, many other anime followed. Later in 2012, Hotel Transylvania was released, followed by a sequel in 2015, Hotel Transylvania 2 and in 2018’s Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.

Another Japanese anime series, Rosario + Vampire, portrays one of the leading female characters, Moka Akashiya, as a vampire, whose demonic powers are sealed inside her with a rosary seal on her neck. The series portrays other kinds of fictional monsters as well, including a witch and a snow-woman.

From 2001 onward vampire web series became popular around the world. One of the first web series was the 2001 series The Hunted. It is about a group of vampire slayers who have been bitten by vampires (but not yet turned into vampires) and try to fight the bloodsucking vampires. The Hunted was followed by 30 Days of Night: Blood Trails (2007) and 30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust (2008) who were based on the films 30 Days of Night and 30 Days of Night: Dark Days. In 2009 the MTV online series Valemont follows Maggie Gracen who decides to infiltrate Valemont University, because her brother Eric has vanished. She soon finds out that the University is full of vampires. The 2009 web series I Heart Vampires focuses on two teenage vampire fans who find out that vampires are more than real. In 2011 the Being Human spin-off Becoming Human was released online. It is about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who go to a school together and try to solve a murder. The 2014 vampire series Carmilla tells the story of the vampire Carmilla Karnstein who visits the university and falls in love with a human girl.

The conversation around horror movies this year has been dominated by two words: Get Out. Jordan Peeles boundary-breaking thriller has deservedly become the reflexive response to the question, Seen any good horror movies lately? But while Peeles directorial debut has been generating early Oscar buzz, a lot of other great horror movies have hit theaters so far this year. Young actresses like Anya Taylor-Joy, Sennia Nanua, and Garance Marillier have impressed in showcase roles, while occult stories like A Dark Song and The Blackcoats Daughter have moved past the well-worn exorcism narrative in favor of more distinct takes on satanic horror. And there have also been some very good bad guys! Here then, are the best horror films of the year so far that arent Get Out. (But theres also Get Out.)

Annabelle: CreationAnnabelle: Creationis the fourth movie in the ever-expanding Conjuring universe, and it served as one of this years biggest summer horror surprises. Director David Sandberg came on for the second Annabelle movie, putting some snapback into the sub-franchise by taking viewers even farther back in time to learn the origins of the wicked doll. Dark, brooding indies are always appreciated, but sometimes, you just want jump scares served up on a platter. Thats exactly what Creation delivers its absolutely overflowing with good, cheap thrills.

Berlin SyndromeThere are more and more strong roles for women in horror films, but still too few female directors. With Berlin Syndrome, Cate Shortland has made a terrifying film about the psychological toll of abusive relationships. Veteran horror heroine Teresa Palmer stars as an Australian tourist who gets taken prisoner after a one-night stand in Berlin, and the actress is even better in Berlin than she was in last years Lights Out. Shortlands claustrophobic look at toxic masculinity and the line between love and obsession is a powerful first foray into the suspense genre.

The Blackcoats DaughterBlackcoats Daughter is the first feature from Osgood Perkins (star of Legally Blonde, son of Anthony), who also recently directed Netflixs I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. If these films are a guide, Perkins has an affinity for stories about quiet, emotionally isolated women susceptible to being overcome by spirits, and Blackcoats is one of the more eerie possession movies in recent memory. It stars Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts as two characters on distinct but intersecting paths, both of whom suffer from troubling visions and flashbacks, and who are linked together by a boarding school in the Northeast. The movie is structured like a puzzle, and Perkins is entirely content to let viewers dwell on long, contemplative takes, with occult imagery sprinkled about. Its hard to make a unique movie about demonic possession, but Perkins avoids hoary tropes like exorcisms and body contortions. For that, his haunting debut earns your attention.

A Dark SongA Dark Song is the feature debut of Irelands Liam Gavin, who comes on the scene strong with this meditation on grief and loss. A woman becomes obsessed with communicating again with her dead son, and so hires an occultist to guide her through a months-long ritual that will allow her to interact with the spirit realm. One big catch: Once the house has been bound, no one can leave it until the process is done. In an isolated country manor, she goes through one ordeal after another: Is her guru just a charlatan? When strange things start to happen, it is truly the divine, or just her paranoid mind? One thing is certain, though: When you open the door to the dead, you have to be prepared for whatever comes through.

The Devils CandyAustralian director Sean Byrnes long-awaited follow-up to his 2009 hit The Loved Ones is at once an ode to heavy metal, an endearing family drama, and a wonderful serial-killer movie rooted in a demonic-possession story. Ethan Embry plays a metalhead and aspiring artist, the head of a working-class family thats struggling to make ends meet. They cant resist buying a house on sale for a criminally low price, but the landlord neglected to tell them thats because the previous owners were killed by their son after the devil told him to do it. (To be fair, theres hardly a box for that on Zillow.) The Devils Candy has plenty of thrashing guitar, an unexpectedly touching father-daughter dynamic, and eventually, lots and lots of fire.

Get OutHere it is! You know it. Youve heard about it, but if you havent seen it: Believe the hype. Jordan Peeles directorial debut is funny, frightening, and one of the most incisive pieces of social commentary ever made in suspense cinema. The story of a black man going home to meet his white girlfriends family, only to discover an unsettling plot, is one of the best movies of the year in any genre, and its a safe bet youll find it atop many critics lists when the year is over.

The Girl With All the GiftsZombies are a pretty tired construction at this point; youve got to have a really killer element to stand out. Fortunately, this British adaptation of M.R. Careys sci-fi novel has a great weapon in young actress Sennia Nanua, who delivers an impressive performance as a hybrid zombie who may contain the cure to a civilization-destroying infection in her unique blood. When a horde of undead overruns the research facility shes being kept in, a small unit of scientists and soldiers must try and find safety while ensuring her survival and also avoid being eaten by her. Its an affecting family drama, and very good zombie romp.

Hounds of LoveFun fact: Australians make really good rural-crime horror. (See Lake Mungo and The Snowtown Murders for proof.) Hounds of Love is the debut feature from Ben Young, and it tells the story of a mildly rebellious high-schooler taken prisoner by a couple that kidnaps local girls, makes them sex slaves, then kills them. Young does a phenomenal job of leaving the worst of the violence offscreen; he knows theres little value showing a brutal rape when a cutaway will deliver the message just as well. But its the movies female victimizer (Emma Booth), who herself is trapped in a cycle of abuse and infatuation with her murderous boyfriend, who takes Hounds to the next level, and who drives one of the most nerve-racking final scenes in recent memory.

ItAs September ends,Itlooks poised to pass the half-billion dollar mark at the global box office before it leaves theaters, becoming the highest grossing horror movie of all time while blowing past the previous record-holder,The Exorcist. Its also gotten very good reviews. Andy Muschiettis revival of the classic Stephen King tale adheres more closely to the book than the iconic mini-series that aired on ABC in 1990. Its also shinier and meaner than its screen predecessor, putting the Losers Club through plenty of R-rated trials as they come together to try and vanquish the demonic Pennywise from their sleepy little town of Derry, Maine. Bill Skarsgrd is great as the dancing clown, but keep your guard up against the heinous Henry Bowers the bullys teeth are almost sharper than the sewer-dwelling hell creatures.

It Comes at NightA less-than-honest marketing campaign has led to a lot of dissatisfaction from people who saw It Comes at Night in theaters, but A24s newest art-house horror movie deserves to find the right audience. Its a movie about two families who are brought together under extremely tense circumstances after an unexplained societal collapse. There is no physical It in It Comes At Night just a nerve-jangling tone study about the limits of humanity when normal social rules have been abandoned. So lets be clear: Almost nothing in this movie will jump out and scare you, but if you want gorgeous cinematography, long takes, and an enduring sense of impending doom, this is the film for you.

Killing GroundThe most consistently well-executed horror cinema of the year has been funneling into the US from across the world. Killing Ground is the debut feature from Australian director Damien Power, whose take on the trapped-in-the-woods trope functions with equal effectiveness as a character drama and an icky thriller that makes you sink into your chair. When a couple on a camping holiday realizes the neighboring campsite has been hastily abandoned, they first set out to find its inhabitants, but then realize its time to get the hell out of Dodge when they come upon a twisted murder scene deeper into the woods. This one is not for viewers who prefer their violence off-camera. While Power does not gleefully linger on gore in the tradition of torture-tourism movies like Saw or Hostel, Killing Grounds brutality is presented in long, direct takes, making it feel horribly intimate. At a time when so many scary movies are artfully moving the violence out of the frame, Killing Ground is a quiet return to pain for the viewers who want it.

Lake BodomThis Finnish movie premiered at SXSW earlier this year, and debuted for audiences on the horror-streaming service Shudder this month. The plot follows four teenagers two boys and two girls who go camping together in a nearby forest. The issue is, the boys lured the girls there under false pretenses to help them re-create a crime scene from an unsolved murder that took place on their impromptu campsite years before. Thats not even the creepiest part, but were not here to ruin the twists in this self-aware isolation horror standout.

PrevengeAlice Lowe wrote, directed, and starred in Prevenge, and its one of the most darkly delightful movies to come out this year. Lowe plays Ruth, a pregnant woman who is mourning the death of her partner, and processing the grief by taking orders from her angry fetus to kill a bunch of people. Pregnancy horror is a genre unto itself, but it rarely affords its leads as much agency as Lowe gives Ruth in Prevenge. The result is some of the most empowering body horror youll find.

RawFrench director Julia Ducournaus first feature knocked critics out as it made its way around the festival circuit last year, and it finally hit U.S. theaters in March. Its a coming-of-age drama mixed with cannibal horror, about an academically overachieving and socially underachieving girl who finds herself living in the shadow of her more popular older sister. If that werent bad enough, a terrible hazing incident leaves her with an insatiable new hunger. Actress Garance Marillier is great as the repressed and increasingly rebellious lead, and Ducournau delivers a beautifully shot look at the terrifying bridge between being a teen girl and a young woman. Raw doesnt lazily lean on gratuitous violence, but it does provide just enough blood for the gore-hounds out there.

SplitBefore Get Out premiered, Split spent a month as the early favorite for the years biggest horror movie. For an original story, its box-office success was unprecedented until Peeles movie set the bar even higher. Still, Split fully cements the return of M. Night Shyamalan as an appointment-viewing director, with James McAvoy in full bloom as a man with multiple personalities, and Anya Taylor-Joy reaffirming why shes horrors young actress du jour. The themes in this one are dark, but its great to see the director get his edge back.

Super Dark TimesSuper Darkisnt big or expensive. Its a lean little paranoia-based thriller about a pair of high schoolers who have to deal with the fallout of a very bad and very weird accident that will change their lives forever. In his debut feature, director Kevin Phillips does a great job of balancing tension with heartfelt adolescent drama as he follows a couple of nerdy boys who are dealing with high school bullies, first loves, growing apart from your best friend and also, manslaughter.

Creep 2Mark Duplass and writer-director Patrick Brice have put together an excellent follow-up to their micro-budget Creep from 2014, in which Duplass plays an amiable serial killer who prefers to forge weird bonds of friendship with his victims before doing them in. Desiree Akhavan plays a videographer on hand to film Duplasss character (hes changed his name from Josef to Aaron) as they spend a day together in a remote cabin. Creep 2 is tense and uncomfortable and features one of the best nude scenes of the year. Its also a clever deconstruction of a serial-killer movie, powered by an extremely discomfiting performance from Duplass in fully scary mode made even scarier by the steady, confident presence of Akhavan.

The BabysitterMcGs The Babysitter is low-risk, high-yield horror-comedy play time. Cole (Judah Lewis) is a little old for a babysitter, but at least the late-blooming lovable geek has the ultracool Bee (Samara Weaving) to look after him. One weekend, when his parents go out of town (a well-placed Ken Marino and Leslie Bibb), Cole endeavors to spy on Bee after bedtime to see what she gets up to, and he is understandably surprised when she sees her carrying out ritual sacrifice in his living room with a group of sexy teens. Bee made a deal with the devil and her friends want in on the action, but when Cole finds out what theyre up to, hes going to have to kill or be killed to make it through the night. Babysitter is highly silly and very bloody, but its Bee and Coles sweet bond at the core that gives it a surprising, charming backbone. Also, actress Hana Mae Lee (the silent beatboxer in Pitch Perfect) actually gets to speak lines!

Better Watch OutChris Peckover has served up a perfect Halloween-time treat with his debut feature, Better Watch Out. Its a combination black comedy and Christmas horror story about a night of babysitting that turns awfully bloody when preteen Luke sets a plan in motion to get his minder to finally want him the way he wants her. Things start to go off the rails when a gun-wielding masked man invades the house, and only get worse when the babysitters ex-boyfriends enter the picture. We dont want to spoil the fun, but suffice to say Peckover does an excellent job of balancing violent bombast and acts of violation that are genuinely uncomfortable and anything but funny. He makes you a participant in the debauchery, then makes you pay for it, then does it all over again. Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould, those precocious siblings from The Visit, both give great performances alongside Levi Miller. Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton arent in the movie for long, but when they are, theyre hilarious.

Geralds GameThis Stephen King adaptation from designated horror hitter Mike Flanagan feels like horror for grown-ups. Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood play Jessie and Gerald, a married couple looking to put some zest back in their relationship with a weekend getaway. Jessie insists shes up for new experiences, but things get too rough too fast after Gerald cuffs her to the bed and starts playing out a rape fantasy she didnt know he had. The situation goes from distressing to harrowing, though, when Gerald dies of a heart attack, leaving her chained to the bed with little to no hope of rescue. Gugino delivers a powerful, dynamic performance, playing both the victim on the bed as well as a bolder manifestation of her subconscious self that tries to guide her through the situation and through past traumas that have landed her in handcuffs with someone like Gerald in the first place. Guginos Jessie is a case study in the duality of feminine strength and vulnerability onscreen, embodying the virtues and perils of both.

Happy Death DayA bratty college girl wakes up in a strange boys dorm room on her birthday, does the shame-walk back to her sorority, and gets killed on her way to a rager that night. That sounds like the opening death in a slasher movie in which said bratty girl will never be heard from again, but in Happy Death Day, it keeps happening over and over and over again. Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) doesnt know why she keeps dying and coming back, but she does come to the conclusion that if she wants to move on with her life or at least see it mercifully end she has to unmask her killer. In a lesser movie, this Groundhog Day premise could get tired real fast, but Happy Death Day is aware enough of its own absurdity to be in on the jokes, and willing to make them before you do. This movie is as sweet as it is mean, which adds up to lots of fun, and new face Rachel Matthews is flat-out excellent as the head bitch in charge of the sorority house.

1922Stephen King fever is still running hot in 2017, with the years final adaptation arriving in late October. Based on the novella of the same name, 1922 is about a Nebraska farmer named Wilfred James (Thomas Jane), who, with the help of his teenage son (Dylan Schmid), murders his wife (Molly Parker) to prevent her from selling her share of their land so she can move to the big city. The rest of the movie is a pressure cooker, with Wilfred succumbing to paranoia and hallucinating the ghost of his wife, who tells him terrible truths that only the dead could know. As the anxiety and harsh weather and bad luck take their toll, Jane delivers an excellent performance as the buttoned-up, soft-spoken farmer who cant escape his sins especially with all those judgmental rats following him everywhere he goes.

Cult of ChuckyMurderer Charles Lee Ray has been in the body of a Play Pals Chucky doll for 30 years now, and the horror-comedy franchise still has a lot of gas in the tank. Brad Dourif sounds like hes having as much fun as ever as the voice of Chucky, Jennifer Tilly is back in for round four, and even the original Andy (Alex Vincent), who we last saw in 1990s Childs Play 2, has returned to the fold! Dont sleep on this wry, ridiculous, and surprisingly queer-friendly franchise, which has proven itself the surprise winner of the 1980s slasher wars. We would describe the plot, but it would really only make sense if you watched the previous six movies first (or read our primer on the franchise here).

Tragedy GirlsAlexandra Shipp and Brianna Hildebrand are two high-school friends obsessed with social-media clout and theyre willing to kill to boost theirs. Fall has been a great season for horror comedy, and Tragedy Girls brings the fun as it follows Sadie and McKayla on their journey from trying to track down a serial killer in their town, to actually becoming the serial killers themselves. Dark and brooding toxic female friendships are a favorite trope in the suspense genre, but sometimes extremely misguided best girlfriends just wanna have a good time, even if that means dismembering bodies with the high-school shop supplies just for the lulz.